This invention relates to an apparatus for retaining guide pulleys for load cables of a building front cable lift in a housing stationarily arranged at the top of a building, from which housing the guide pulleys are outwardly pivotable from ground.
Such apparatus find application in particular for building front cable lifts for rescuing for instance people in fire emergency, in order to protect the guide pulleys constituting fixed components of the building in their housing against weather effects and in order to thereby insure that the guide pulleys are ready for use in case of an emergency. In a conventional apparatus, cable drums are supported at the internal sides of two wings outwardly pivotable horizontally, on which drums the load cables are wound up. The load cables are provided with weights at their one ends. The wings are locked in the lock position by a latch. Said latch is able to be drawn out of its lock from ground by means of a remote control cable, the result being that the wings with the cable drums are pivoted into the open position via spring-loaded pivot levers and are retained in this position. Furthermore, the load cables unwind in the open position of the wings subject to the action of the weights from the cable drums to ground. Such an apparatus in which the load cables are wound up prior to operating the lift is not able to be employed for a building front cable lift provided for high buildings alone in view of the required size of the cable winding capacity of the cable drums. Furthermore, such an apparatus is relatively complicated as a result of the spring-loaded pivot levers, it thereby not being able to be precluded with the degree of safety required for rescue cable lifts that as a result of rusting or contamination the outward pivoting of the guide pulleys from the housing and thus the use of the lift is uncertain.